Vladimir Lenin

At A Congress Of Chairmen Of Gubernia Soviets[1]

July 30 1918

Newspaper Report

Delivered:30 July, 1918.First Published:IzvestiaNo. 161, July 31, 1918; Published according to theIzvestiatextSource:Lenin’s Collected Works, Progress 
      Publishers, Moscow, Volume 28, 1965, pages 34-36Translated (and edited):Jim RiordanTranscription/HTML Markup:David WaltersOnline Version:V.I.Lenin Internet 		Archive, 2002

Comrades, your job is one of administration, which plays a
      dominant part in the affairs of the Council of People’s
      Commissars. Quite naturally, many difficulties lie ahead of
      you. In the majority of gubernia Executive Committees it is
      evident that the masses are at last beginning to tackle the work
      of administration themselves. There are certainly bound to be
      difficulties. One of our greatest shortcomings has been that we
      still draw too little on the workers for our staffs. But it was
      never our intention to adapt the old apparatus to the new system
      of administration, and we do n  ot regret that with the
      abolition of the old apparatus everything has to be built anew
      with so much difficulty. The workers and peasants possess
      greater constructive abilities than might have been expected. It
      is to the revolution’s credit that it swept away the old
      administrative apparatus. Yet at the same time we must admit
      that the people’s chief shortcoming is their timidity and
      reluctance to take things into their own hands.

Some of our gubernia Soviets have been inefficient, but now the
    work is steadily improving. Information has been coming in from
    may parts of the country stating that the work is progressing
    without any misunderstandings or conflicts. Although only eight
    months have elapsed, the Russian revolution has proved that the
    new class which has taken administration into its own hands is
    capable of coping with the task. Although it is short-staffed, the
    administrative apparatus is running more smoothly every day.

    Our apparatus is till at a stage where no definite results are
    visible, a fact which the enemy keeps harping on. Nevertheless,
    quite a lot has already been done. The transfer of land and
    industry to the working people, the exchange of goods and the
    organisation of food supply are being carried into effect in face
    of fantastic difficulties. The working people must be promoted to
    independent work in building up and running the socialist
    state. Only practice will teach them that the old exploiting class
    is finished and done with.

Our chief and most urgent task is administration, organisation
    and control. This is a thankless and inconspicuous job; but it is
    in doing this job that the managerial and administrative talents
    of the workers and peasants will develop more and more
    effectively.

Now to the new Constitution.[2]It embodies what
    experience has already given, and will be corrected and
    supplemented as it is being put into effect. The main thing about
    the Constitution is that the Soviet government is completely
    dissociating itself from the bourgeoisie, preventing them from
    participating in building up the state.

The workers and peasants, upon whom the government has called
    to run the country, and who have remained remote from such affairs
    for so long, were bound to want to build the state by their own
    experience. The effect of the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!"
    was that the people in the localities wanted to gain experience in
    building the state by learning from their own mistakes. Such a
    transitional period was unavoidable, ad it has proved
    beneficial. In this tendency towards separatism, there was much
    that was healthy and wholesome in the sense that it displayed a
    creative spirit. The Soviet Constitution has defined the relations
    between the volost authority and the uyezd authority, between the
    uyezd authority and the gubernia authority, and between the latter
    and the centre.

Only large-scale, planned construction, which aims at evenly
    utilising economic ad business values, deserves to be called
    socialist. The Soviet government certainly does not intend to
    belittle the importance of the local authorities or kill their
    autonomy ad initiative. Even the peasants realise through their
    own experience the need for centralism.

Now that the Constitution has been endorsed and is being put
      into effect, an easier period in our state affairs is
      beginning. But, unfortunately, it is hard for us just now to
      devote ourselves to an economic, business and agricultural
      policy. We have to divert all our attention to more elementary
      things-the food question. The condition of the working class in
      the hungry provinces is really drastic. Until the new harvest is
      brought in, every effort must be made to overcome somehow the
      food difficulties and other troubles.

Besides this, there are military tasks. You know that the Czech
    movement, financed and instigated by the British and French
    imperialists, has caught Russia in a semicircle. You also know
    that the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie and the kulak peasants
    are joining this movement. We have received news from the
    localities that Soviet Russia’s recent reverses have
    convinced the workers and the revolutionary peasants by their own
    experience that control is needed in the military sphere as well
    as in state development.

I am convinced that things will get better in future. I am
      convinced that the gubernia Executive Committees will create a
      strong socialist army by organising control over the commanding
      staff with the help of the peasants. The lessons of the revolution
      have at last taught the classes of the workers and exploited
      peasants the need to take up arms. The peasants and workers,
      besides having won the land, control, etc., base learnt to
      understand the need to control the army. By carrying their efforts
      into the sphere of military affairs, they will make the army of
      their creation fully worthy of the title of a socialist army, an
      army which will successfully fight the counter-revolutionary
      bourgeoisie and the imperialists until the international
      revolutionary proletariat comes to our aid. (Comrade Lenin
      ’s speech is greeted with stormy applause from all
      delegates.)

[1]The Congress was held in Moscow from July 30 to August 1, 1918,
      There were 122 delegates, of whom 120 were
      Communists. G. I. Petrovsky, People's Commissar for the Interior
      of the R.S.F.S.R., delivered a report on the work of the
      Commissariat of the Interior and its immediate tasks. Other
      speakers at the Congress dealt with the activity of the local
      Soviets, the character, tasks and

      organisational forms of Soviet militia, housing and other
      subjects. Lenin spoke at the evening session on July 30. The
      resolutions called for the improvement of the Soviet apparatus
      and emphasised the need for greater harmony between all its
      parts, close contact with the centre and complete obedience to
      the Constitution. The Congress called on the workers and
      peasants of the Republic to rise in arms in defence of the
      socialist fatherland.

[2]Reference is to the Constitution of the Russian Socialist
    Federative Soviet Republic, unanimously adopted at the Fifth
    All-Russia Congress of Soviets on July 10, 1918, and publisheden
    July 19 as the Fundamental Law which went into force on
    publication.

It was the first Soviet Constitution. It gave force of law to
      the great gains of the October Revolution-the new, Soviet state
      system, the abolition of private capitalist property and landed
      proprietorship, equality of all nations inhabiting Russia,
      etc. It gave force of law to the dictatorship of the proletariat
      in the shape of Soviet power, provided for the participation of
      all working people in state administration and disfranchised the
      exploiters. Lenin pointed out:“The world has never known
      such a constitution as ours. It embodies the workers’
      experience of struggle and organisation against the exploiters
      both at home and abroad.”